


Dear Heart

by Kendrene



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Angst, Blood and Gore, Daemons!AU, Eventual Smut, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Minor Character Death, rated explicit for content in later parts
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-04
Updated: 2017-11-22
Packaged: 2019-01-09 02:25:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12267000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kendrene/pseuds/Kendrene
Summary: “It’s not my job to settle.” Clarke retorts resentful, “sometimes I wish we were back on the Ark. It was easier then.”She regrets the words as soon as they are out of her mouth, but when she bends down to grab him, Alistair scurries quickly between her feet, lithe form dodging her graceless attempt at restraining him.He races to the other side of the tent and climbs onto the folding table Raven made for Clarke.“Oh I’m sorry,” he hisses when she tries to edge closer, fur puffing up with his displeasure, “if I am an inconvenience. I was here even before you know? Just because you couldn’t see your soul doesn’t mean you didn’t have one.”ORThe 100 universe but everyone has a daemon





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Aspidities](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aspidities/gifts).



> Just playing around a bit with the concept here - not sure what else will come of it, but hopefully you'll let me know if you want to see more. Enjoy- kudos and comments are as always appreciated.
> 
> For Aspidities who possibly loved HDM even more than I did. (go check her work out - it's awesome)

“Would you stop doing that, it’s giving me an headache.”

Clarke pleads between clenched teeth, to no avail. The daemon hoots down at her from the perch he’s found on one of the tent’s support beams. Similar structures have gone up around Camp Jaha in record time so that everyone can be housed comfortably, and Clarke wasted no time in securing her own space.

So that she can be out of her mother’s suffocating reach, at least when she’s inside the tent. 

“Please.” She begs quietly, and the owl launches himself in the air, buffeting her head with a beat of his wing before settling on her shoulder, claws digging into her flesh despite her heavy coat. He shifts, air shimmering around him and a ermine with pelt as white as snow snuggles under her chin.

“ _ Alistair _ .”

“It’s not my  _ fault _ !” He protests, dropping to the ground at her feet with a huff, “do you think I enjoy this? I wish you’d settle for a form and call it quits.” 

“It’s not  _ my _ job to settle.” Clarke retorts resentful, “sometimes I wish we were back on the Ark. It was easier then.” 

She regrets the words as soon as they are out of her mouth, but when she bends down to grab him, Alistair scurries quickly between her feet, lithe form dodging her graceless attempt at restraining him. 

He races to the other side of the tent and climbs onto the folding table Raven made for Clarke. 

“Oh I’m sorry,” he hisses when she tries to edge closer, fur puffing up with his displeasure, “if I am an inconvenience. I was here even before you know? Just because you couldn’t see your soul doesn’t mean you didn’t have one.”

“Look. I’m sorry… it’s just…”

Clarke drops down on the edge of her bed with a disconsolate sigh. “We need to do something about the grounders at our gates and my mother won’t even  _ listen  _ to me!” She’s shouting by the end of the sentence and doesn’t care, hands clamped down atop her knees to keep them from shaking. 

She stays like that as minutes trickle by, eyes open and staring at nothing until they burn. The cold, wet touch of Alistair’s nose against her knuckles shakes her out of her stupor. 

The daemon clambers up her legs and sits snugly in her lap, rising on his hindquarters to grip at the front of her jacket with his paws. He stretches until they are almost nose to nose, and nuzzles her cheeks, black eyes shining like buttons as they meet hers. 

“It’ll be alright, Clarke.” He soothes, their quarrel forgotten. 

Suddenly he’s a cat and his raspy tongue darts out to scrape against her cheekbone. Clarke laughs - she can’t help it really - just as she can’t help that she’s unable to stay mad at him for long.

“Let’s go.” She says once she’s calmed down, standing so fast Alistair has to jump out of her way.

“ _ What _ ? Where?” 

“To see this Commander.” Clarke slings her satchel across her chest, but leaves her knife - the one Wells made for her which she’s had since the beginning - on the table. She’s sure the grounders wouldn’t be pleased if she showed up armed. 

Alistair sputters, racing around the small tent and shifting from form to form in a show of nervousness. Clarke feels it too, a tightening knot within her gut mixed with euphoria at finally doing  _ something  _ \- even though it may not be the right thing. 

She decides to ignore him, and spends a few moments to look at her warped image in a piece of broken mirror, browned and cracked with age. She combs her hair with her fingers then shrugs, putting the mirror down. 

It’s far from passable, but it’ll have to do.

Clarke starts for the tent’s entrance, intent on getting this thing done now that she’s picked a course of action, but Alistair lingers and it stings when the distance between them grows enough to pull. Clarke doesn’t let it slow her steps, and it becomes a painful wrench before a scurrying of clawed feet picks up behind her. 

“Thought you weren’t coming.” 

“As if I had a choice.” Alistair snarks through a show of wicked teeth. 

*************************

“Try to change as much as you can,” she mutters as they make it past guards too stunned to hold her from leaving camp, “it may be enough to throw the grounders off.”

“It may be enough to get you killed.” He counters, before hopping upwards and shifting into a crow, black feathers falling like snowflakes around Clarke’s head. “They don’t like the fact that Sky People’s daemons haven’t settled yet. It makes us  _ untrustworthy _ .” He caws in displeasure and after zipping right in front of Clarke’s face comes to rest on her shoulder. “Or have you forgotten Anya?”

“I have not.” Her hand involuntarily goes to her pocket, and she clutches at the folded kerchief she keeps there. 

She holds onto it like a talisman as they descend the hill towards the grounder camp. Her knuckles grow white around it as warriors point her out - a detachment quickly making its way to her. 

“What do you want?” Their leader blocks her path, his daemon - a bristling ferret - spitting a challenge in Alistair’s direction, which the crow studiously ignores.

“I’m Clarke Griffin. I wish to see the one you call the Heda.” 

Clarke’s hand tightens further inside her pocket and - as foolish as it is to wish she could draw strength from a dead woman - she absurdly does.

*************************

“So you are the one that burned three hundred of my warriors alive.” 

The tent is deathly quiet, save for the cold tones of Heda’s voice. She’s not what Clarke had come to picture - far from it - a powerfully slim girl, maybe a handful of years her senior. But the light within her forest green eyes is one of danger, and the kestrel perched atop her throne seems poised to strike Clarke down on the girl’s word. 

She - somehow Clarke is sure the daemon’s female - doesn’t change, much to her chagrin, Alistair’s constant transformations looking like vulgar parlor tricks in such lofty company. 

He’s a bengal cat right now - stalking leisurely at her feet - and Clarke knows he chose the color of his eyes in pointed mockery - staring back at the Commander with orbs as green as her own. Judging from the almost imperceptible flex of Heda’s jaw, she is perfectly aware. 

“So.” Clarke tilts her chin, a slow smirk she can’t nor wants to stop spreading across her lips like honeyed butter, “you are the one that sent them there to kill us.” 

The tent erupts around them, warriors and daemons alike calling for her blood. One of the Commander’s lieutenants, a hard-looking woman with a grey wolf for a companion - goes as far as to draw an inch of steel before Heda’s raised hand restrains her.

“Hod op, Indra.”

The Commander leans forward. “Do you have an answer for me, Clarke of the Sky People?” 

Clarke wets her lips, knowing perfectly well this is the moment that could make or break them all. At her feet Alistair grows, accompanied by a series of snaps and savage growls into a massive lion. 

She would hug him if she could, the idiot, and when she speaks she does so with the knowledge that if they will go down they’ll do so fighting.

“I’ve come to make you an offer.”

*************************

_ This is not a negotiation. _

Heda had stated it clearly, but negotiate they did. 

It’s almost dark by the time Clarke rises to take her leave, with a respectful if stiff bow that the Commander seems to appreciate. She scarcely can read the woman, and her daemon - Yael - only makes things worse. 

All in all, it has gone well, Clarke thinks as she takes a moment to lean against the table she’d been sitting at for hours, legs blazing with the pins and needles of inactivity. 

Only Heda’s most trusted Generals remain - Indra, the woman that almost took her head off in the beginning, a towering man called Gustus and a few others she can’t quite name just yet. 

The Commander has proven to be a gracious enough host, offering her food and drink when it became apparent that they would spend most of the day hammering out the details of their agreement. Clarke has taken water, but the plate of food at her elbow has remained untouched throughout their talks. Heda hasn’t eaten either, perhaps in a gesture of respect to her own nerves. 

“There is one last thing, before we are agreed.” 

Her voice has grown mellow with the long hours, but her eyes remain cold and - in the scarce light - darken to midnight. 

Clarke dreads to ask what is yet to be discussed, and so she keeps silent. 

“The boy, Finn.” 

_ There it is.  _

“He needs to pay for what he’s done.” 

Under the table, Alistair’s fur turns jet-black. 

*************************

“You can’t give him up! You can’t!” Raven’s screams pierce the night, but fail to stab her heart like she thought they would. 

Clarke is shell-shocked, adrift, the long hours spent bargaining finally taking their toll - rather unkindly. 

She’s made her way back to camp like a sleepwalker, hand clasped tight around a handful of Alistair’s mane. For some sort of miracle he has stopped shifting, even though the edges of his body sometimes shimmer as if he was about to. 

Clarke doesn’t think she would have made it back at all without him guiding her. 

“I already agreed.” She husks gravelly, shoulders slumping forward. 

They are standing in a line - she found them waiting for her like that when she stepped through the gates - and they stare in stunned silence, trying to wrap their minds around her words. 

Raven is the one who reacts first, lunging at her with an anguished cry as her hand goes to Clarke’s face slapping her. 

She lets her do it, one, two, three times, just swaying on her feet as she takes her friend’s impotent rage without complaint. 

Then the unthinkable happens, and Raven’s daemon - a magpie and one of the few already settled - flies into Alistair, sharp claws digging into his muzzle. 

Someone yells - Bellamy she thinks - and Raven is jerked back, guards restraining her on either side as they take her away from the gates.

The others crowd around Clarke, her mother trying to take a look at her face, but she whirls away and heads deeper into the camp - Alistair holding whoever strains too close back with a snarl. 

She needs to be the one to tell Finn. She owes him that.

*************************

“Finn…” 

“I understand, Clarke.” He reaches down to scratch his daemon between the ears. He’s a bloodhound tonight, his eyes as big and sad as his master’s in the light of the fire. 

“There was nothing…” She stops. the half-formed excuse ringing hollow.

“...You could do. I know.”

He stands with a sigh, staring into his tin mug before dumping its contents over the fire. The flames hiss and rear up, tinted blue, and the pungent smell of Monty’s brew stings Clarke’s nose.

“When should I go?” 

“They’re here for you now.” They turn to the gates and see them. Two imposing warriors on horseback, bearing torches to push back the night.

“Shouldn’t keep them waiting then.” A weak grin, last vestige of his bravado, tugs at the corner of his lips.

“Finn…”

“It’s ok, Clarke. We all do what we have to.”

She watches him go, and when she falls to her knees there’s a dampness on her face. Clarke didn’t know she had been crying. In wonderment and disbelief she brings her hands to her cheeks, bright red from a split lip she doesn’t recall getting staining her skin along with tears. 

When she throws her arms around Alistair’s neck muffling heart wrenching sobs into his fur, she finds blood on him too.

  
. _..to be continued... _


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clarke walks into the grounders' camp to try and avert Finn's death. A choice is made.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please bear in mind this chapter describes a death, and even though it's canon I'd rather spell it out so that you know.
> 
> As always kudos and comments are appreciated - I know I haven't replied to everyone commenting on chapter one, but life has been a bit rough in the last couple weeks- I do apologize though, because I treasure all your feedback.

Alistair makes himself smaller. 

First the lion becomes a cub and then he changes, a rabbit white as frost wriggling into Clarke’s lap as she sits on the ground next to the bonfire. 

Her sobs quieten, but the tears keep on falling, and she is grateful to see them disappear among his shining fur. He always chooses a smaller form - one that she can hold - when she’s upset, and she loves him for it. 

She adores him for being able to bend over him, arms going around him gently as his quivering nose brushes her cheek. 

It makes Clarke feel safe when she pulls him against her chest, as if she was taking back the piece of her soul he carries within. 

The night is silent around them, cold despite the flames blazing next to her. When she looks around, she notices that the camp is mostly deserted, word of what’s about to come evidently spread. 

People must have decided they’d rather try to ignore the blood shed at their gates. Out of sight and out of mind - even though Clarke knows it won’t be quite out of earshot. 

Alistair writhes in her arms with a small  _ yip  _ as if seeing exactly where her train of thought is headed at full speed. 

“Don’t think about it.” He says confirming her suspicions, voice muffled by the fact he’s squishing his muzzle against her neck in an attempt to reassure her. “Whatever you do, don’t think about  _ that _ .”

But it’s too late, Indra’s voice resounding within the echoing chambers of Clarke’s mind. The General had seemed eager to explain what Finn’s punishment entailed, even though her face had remained neutral. As neutral as a face as hard as hers could be at least. But her wolf had grinned openly, not at Clarke but at her daemon - which may as well be the same thing - and she had feared that Alistair would swallow the bait and lunge to rip the wolf to shreds. 

The details had come in a gruesome flood until Clarke had raised a shaky hand, not caring that she would be judged weak for it. The choice was between begging Indra to stop, or vomit at the Commander’s feet - and of two bad options she chose the least humiliating one. 

The General had smirked, only stalking closer, but then Heda’s voice had cut through hers like a sharp knife.

_ “Em pleni _ , Indra.” Something had glimmered deep within those green eyes - pity, perhaps, or an apology? - Clarke had not been sure, and anyway it was gone before she could analyze it further. 

But the quiet command had been enough for Indra to shut up, and Clarke had taken hasty leave before somehow tottering back to camp. Before the wails that pressed at the back of her throat could catch up to her and shame her entirely.

What jolts her out of the memory aren’t Alistair’s front paws, kneading against her collarbone, but a chorus of eerie voices, howling through the shacks and tents around her like a cruel wind.

The Grounders - Clarke realizes - the Grounders are chanting something. 

That’s when another epiphany comes - this one much harsher, but no less true. She can’t let Finn go - not like this. 

Not alone.

The world, which her grief had turned to something unable to affect her, rushes back and Clarke gasps, her body feeling everything at once.

Her cheeks burn with the fire’s heat, the rest of her icy cold from the wind and the damp chill seeping up from the ground. 

But with feeling Clarke regains purpose, and climbs to her feet, Alistair hopping off her lap to stare at her curiously. 

“What now?” 

She simply turns on her heels and stalks to her tent, retrieving her knife in a matter of seconds and concealing it up a sleeve. The scrap-metal blade is thin enough that she can tuck it in securely without it creating a bump in her jacket. Hopefully none of the Grounder guards will think of frisking her.

“Oh, no.” Alistair mutters, trying to get between her and the exit, “no, no, no,  _ no _ , NO!” 

But Clarke simply steps over him before he collects himself enough to shift into something sufficiently big to bar her way and vanishes in the night beyond.

*************************

Her mother of course tries to stop her. 

“You can’t go back there, Clarke. It’s madness.” The mourning dove perched on her shoulder hoots in fierce agreement. 

Clarke wants to tell her that she’s felt like she’s lived a fever-dream since the moment they crashed to the ground. She wants to scream and shake her mother roughly. Wasn’t it madness - she wants to ask - when you sent us here to die?

“Get out of my way.” She says instead, cold and flat, her emotions trapped under the surface of a face she manages to keep still by sheer luck. She wills herself calm like a frozen lake in winter - which she’s only seen in pictures - because she’s too afraid that if she lets the rawness out, she’ll say things that’ll be sorely regretted after they injure them both.

Her mother gives her a strange look, the hands she raised to Clarke’s shoulders to try and hold her back falling away.

Nobody else tries to keep her from going  - although Bellamy’s eyes are full of concern, his daemon spying her from a pocket of his jacket. Clarke is glad that the rest of them just move aside - standing up to Abby is in a way defiance - but facing down her friends would have been harder. 

There is one set of eyes she’s eager to leave behind however, Raven’s gaze burning against her skin like a firebrand. 

Raven doesn’t speak - simply holding her eyes for a moment, before Clarke turns to stride out of the gate - but her silence is far worse than a slap in the face.

All the way down the hill, Clarke mourns their friendship. 

*************************

This time wolf and lion square off. 

Alistair has shifted again - he’s also called her uncomplimentary things each step of the way to the grounder camp - but as soon as Indra’s daemon approached he dropped the act and now stands between the beast and Clarke, crouched low and ready to pounce. 

The wolf growls and snaps his jaws, paws digging at the ground. By contrast Alistair is utterly still, pelt such a rich black that it mingles with the shadows of the night. 

Only his eyes pierce the darkness, no longer mocking green but of the same white-blue that burns within the heart of each and every star. Then he opens his maws - still unsettlingly quiet - and a set of wicked fangs flashes through the blackness.

Indra scoffs at the display and steps forward, raising a pole tipped with more than a foot of steel to Clarke’s chest. 

The metal is icy cold against her skin, the tip so sharp she may as well have bared her chest for a mortal thrust. Clarke threadbare shirt is easily sliced through when Indra flicks her wrist a fraction, and a rivulet of blood worms its way between her breasts, warm and sticky as it travels down her stomach.

“Why are you here?” Indra sneers, the tip of her spear twisting in the cut a little, “you’ve interfered enough.” 

Clarke can almost taste Indra’s chagrin, and isn’t surprised by her reception. The General had been the most vocal during her meeting with Heda, calling Clarke’s every word a lie. 

She knows that if Indra was Commander the camp would be already under siege.

Before she can answer, Heda’s daemon circles overhead, her shrill cries shattering the building tension. There is a noticeable shift in the Grounders’ behaviour - they all stand straighter and look at once more menacing and intimidated. 

“Let her through, Indra.” The Commander’s voice floats towards them from the shadows, so detached that the word  _ bored _ flashes through Clarke’s mind. 

She supposes that it could very well be the case, this type of punishment probably not an uncommon occurrence. For a moment she is tempted to embrace her people’s way of thinking and call the Grounders savages, but then she remembers her father being sucked out into the inimical void of space. 

Just because execution on the Ark was bloodless, it didn’t make it less brutally terrifying.

Heda strides into the light of a scattering of torches, embers sparked deep within the emerald of her eyes by the open flames. Her kestrel plummets from above, so fast Clarke only  _ perceives  _ a feathery blur, and just when she thinks the bird will knock the Commander squarely in the chest, her flight levels and she comes to a rest on Heda’s shoulder guard. 

“Show-off.” Alistair grumbles, low enough that the people around them only hear a quiet purr. Clarke tugs at the mane spilling down his neck all the same and he huffs, falling quiet. 

“Why are you here,  _ Klark  _ of the Sky People?” The words are mirrors to Indra’s, but the tone is altogether different. The Commander tilts her head, Yael preening her feathers in a show of pure indifference, but Clarke is aware of the way they both look her way without appearing to do so. 

She thinks it’s weird that she knows the daemon’s name, but not Heda’s.

“If you’ve come to plead for his life…” The Commander begins when she doesn’t immediately answer, and Clarke shakes her head. 

“I’ve thought about it.” There is something in the woman’s eyes this night, that makes it impossible to lie, perhaps because they look like bottomless ponds one may stumble across in the heart of a forest - still and full of secrets. 

“But it would be no use.” Clarke concludes, and the Commander nods, seemingly relieved. 

“It would not. One cannot pay for the sins of another.” 

It is the answer she’s come to expect - if she’s gathered anything from her time with Anya is that besides strength, grounders value just retribution - and yet, despite Alistair’s fangs urgently tugging at her sleeve, she finds herself continuing. 

“What I do not understand is why I am not strapped to a pole beside his.”

“We can remedy that.” Indra starts, words underlined by the growl of her wolf, but the Commander uncrosses her arms and she goes quiet. 

“Lives were lost in this war on both sides.” She says simply, her distant expression belied by the harsh cast of her voice. She doesn’t speak above a murmur, and yet her words fall among them with the finality of an avalanche.

“Now say why you have come, and go. This is not a place for you tonight.” The Commander’s eyes lower to the blood darkening Clarke’s shirt and something akin to disdain darkens her face for a moment. “You bleed for nothing. You can’t stop this.” She adds with a patience that irritates Clarke. 

Heda speaks for all the world like she is explaining something to a stubborn child that will not listen, but perhaps the grounders think of her people as savages for not knowing Earth’s way. 

Clarke wants to laugh at the absurdity of it, or maybe scream her rage into the heavens, and the only thing keeping her from breaking is Alistair’s reassuring weight, as he rubs against her leg.

“I am a murderer as much as he is,” she tries again desperately, despite having stated herself that it is all for nothing. But Clarke needs the words out. her spirit heavy with the weight of the lives she has taken, “I burned three hundred of your warriors. I slit the throat of a man and watched him die. I am drenched in Grounders’ blood.” The warriors around her mutter and shift, Alistair’s fangs nipping her flesh lightly in warning. She ignores him. 

“Take me instead.”

“But Finn is guilty.” Heda whispers looking like death herself. Her eyes burn with green fire amid the warpaint, older far beyond her years, and her skin looks waxen by contrast. Kohl slicks her cheekbones and it looks to Clarke like she’s crying tears of blood. 

She’s seen renditions of the Morrigan in the Ark’s archives - goddess of war and death - and Yael may very well have turned into a raven, her feathers appearing pitch black in the scant light.

“No.” The first sob claws its way up her throat before she can clamp her teeth around it. “No. He did it for me. For  _ me _ .”

“Then he dies for you.”

They stare at each other for what feels to Clarke like a lifetime. It’s only minutes, but she dies under that stare and then is born again - perhaps wiser, and certainly more scarred.  

“Can I say goodbye?”

Heda closes her eyes and steps aside, Yael taking flight with a high-pitched scream. 

That’s all the permission Clarke needs to rush forward, fingers curling around the blade that is suddenly filling her hand. Finn - who has walked out of the gate with his head high and his back straight - looks terrified, but relieved that she is there. 

He looks to her with eyes that are at once loving and full of the fear of a lost child, and under that stare she is at a loss for words. So she kisses him, the gesture ripe with the bitter taste of a forever-goodbye, because if she speaks she may tell him a truth that would be hard to hear spoken aloud for them both. Some things take on way too much sharpness when given voice.

She kisses him and her heart doesn’t quicken with love - rather it clenches with the knowledge that the carefree boy that plunged to Earth out of his seat is dead, and that when she looks into Finn’s eyes now, she sees a complete stranger.

Someone she’s not quite sure she knows the name of. 

Someone whose zealot-like belief in her scares her more than the darkness lying in wait within Mount Weather.

When she pulls back, she presses her lips to his ear and the blade to his sternum. 

“It will be ok.” Oh, but life on Earth has made her good at lying, “you will be ok.”

She pushes the blade into his flesh and warm blood gushes out, sticky like the tears that wet her cheeks and make her eyes burn.

He dies by her hand with a sigh, but easing his passing does not unburden her conscience.

What little remains of Clarke’s innocence ebbs away like the smoke of the fires around them.

*************************

The grounders watch on in stunned silence for a moment, and Alistair tries to pull her away, muzzle nudging at her hand to get her attention. But Clarke has eyes only for Finn’s daemon, and is unable tear herself away.

The bloodhound stares up at her. the edges of his form quivering like a mirage. He doesn’t change - rather he starts to fade ever so slowly - until Clarke can see right through him to the ground beyond.

And then the daemon speaks, breaking a taboo older than time itself - a law so ancient that it is engraved in people’s hearts when they are born. Clarke knows this with an epiphany that illuminates her brain like fireworks, not because she read of it, but because of the utter shock oozing from the bond she shares with Alistair.

“Thank you, princess.” She has to squint to see the bloodhound now, and when she blinks he’s gone, as a dream is wont to do upon waking.

Around her, all hell breaks loose.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [click here for more stories and exclusive content](https://kendrene.tumblr.com/)


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Despite robbing the grounders of their justice, Clarke gets back to Camp Jaha unscathed with an offer from the Commander.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone that is taking the time to read this fic! As always kudos and comments are treasured! Happy reading.
> 
> \- Dren

For a moment only the wind speaks, sweeping across the grounders’ camp with a mournful howl. 

Indra’s daemon is the first to react, just as a few outraged shouts ring out among the assembled warriors. The wolf leaps, a smoke-grey shadow of bared fangs and extended claws, but Alistair jumps to meet him, a paw shooting out to swat him out of the air. 

The two beasts hit the ground in a tangled heap, their pelts so similar in color that it’s impossible to tell which one lands on top.

Not that Clarke is looking, her eyes unable to tear away from the rapidly growing spot of blood spreading on Finn’s stomach. His head lolls forward in death, and while she can see only half his face in the uncertain light of the torches, she thinks that he looks peaceful. 

But maybe it’s just a thought her mind entertains to numb the pain that’s starting to fill her chest. 

A different kind of pain flares up in her side, Alistair’s choked snarl breaking her state of shock momentarily. Then the wolf yelps and when Clarke finally turns towards them, Yael flashes past her face, claws wet with blood. 

Matching gashes part the fur on the side of the wolf’s neck. 

“Enough.” 

Heda’s voice is rife with cold anger, and the woman steps between them, glaring at both of their daemons until they retreat by their mistresses’ side. 

“It is done.” She declares, hard eyes meeting first Indra’s and then Clarke’s, “blood has had blood and I will not tolerate more violence tonight.”

Her General bows stiffly, glaring at Clarke once before she whirls around and elbows her way through the crowd, wounded wolf trailing her with tail held low between his legs. 

The Commander turns to Clarke and, judging from her face, she expects the same kind of obeisance. 

Clarke meets her gaze, too tired to show defiance and, while she remains still, Alistair takes a step forward before dropping to the ground to show his belly and throat. 

A murmur rises from the grounders, even the ones that had been clamoring for Clarke’s head a moment ago appearing mollified. 

She doesn’t understand why - to her Alistair has done what she is too tired to - but even Heda’s eyes have widened slightly, her facade cracking before she can catch herself. 

Yael flies around them once, wings beating so close to Clarke’s head that they make her hair flutter across her face, then the kestrel lands, not on Heda’s shoulder but atop the pole to which Finn is still tied.

“The body…” Clarke starts, her voice a foreign thing she doesn’t recognize. 

“Finn needs to be burned where he committed his crime.” Heda steps forward, voice gentle, “otherwise the spirits of the dead will haunt the village.” There is no fear in her eyes, but the reverence of someone talking of a universal truth. 

“I understand.” Clarke whispers, even though she doesn’t. 

Heda places a kind hand on her shoulder, turning her towards Camp Jaha. 

“A delegation of yours can come to witness the ceremony. As a token of...peace.” She says the word slowly, as if it’s something grounders seldom get to enjoy. Clarke doesn’t remember thanking her, but her feet start moving towards the place where her people are waiting. 

It’s the last place on earth she wants to go to.

*********************************

Halfway up the slope she realizes she is still clutching the blood spattered knife and throws it away into the darkness with a sob.

*********************************

Stepping through the gates is worse than Clarke thought. 

Alistair is a living barrier between her and her people, but while he can stop them from physically approaching, she cannot hide from their eyes.

Her mother stares at her like she’s a stranger, face blanched of color and eyes wide. Her friends are no better, except perhaps Murphy who wears something close to a smirk. Knowing him he’s just surprised she had it in her to do something like this. 

Raven’s back is turned away, fingers hooked into the iron links of the camp’s fence like it’s the only thing keeping her upright. Her daemon catches Clarke staring and snaps his beak her way, beady eyes glittering with anger and feathers ruffled.

But the worst is Kane, who gives her a look of understanding that makes her sick. He’s the man that floated her father - and plenty others before him - to preserve the Ark and its laws. Clarke is sickened at the thought that the person she spent so much time hating, may be the only one who truly understands what she is feeling now. 

“They are keeping the body.” She announces woodily to no one in particular, “it needs to be burned so that their dead can rest in peace.” 

At that Raven turns, her face so hollowed out by the shadows cast over it by the ebbing light of a fire that Clarke has the impression she’s staring at a leering skull. Her dark eyes are bottomless pools, maddened by grief and hatred. 

“It should have been you. He did it for _you_.”

Clarke nods. “I know.”

Then she throws dignity to the wind and flees towards her tent. 

*********************************

She tears through camp in record time, tripping over her own feel as she rushes inside the tent, Alistair so close behind he almost crushes into her when she stumbles. 

The sobs she’s managed to hold within while confronting the others rip through her chest, and Clarke doubles over, pressing her hands to her stomach as the taste of rising bile sours her mouth.

It burns her throat like shuttle fuel, and her lips twist in disgust. Then she looks down and, for the first time, she really takes a good look at her hands. 

Finn’s blood hasn’t had a chance to dry completely yet, and her flesh looks like she’s dipped her hands in a bucket of scarlet paint. The blood is not warm anymore - it’s rather cold actually, its texture slimy and unpleasant. 

Clarke has dealt with wounds before when helping her mother in the med-bay, and the sight of blood never really fazed her. But this is different, the vital fluids coating her skin those of a friend - someone she’d loved for a time. 

She jerks her hands away - too late, bloody handprints already soil her shirt -  and holds her arms out, her body shaking as she dry heaves.

Her nose stings with the reek of a vomit that doesn’t come, her stomach far too empty for her to bring up anything at all. Clarke is dimly aware of Alistair talking to her, but all her mind is full of is the blood. 

She needs to get rid of the blood. 

Swaying forward like a drunk, she makes it to the table where she finds a tin pitcher she makes sure is always full and a salvaged container to use as washbasin. She pours some water out, fingers slipping against the tin’s metal handle, hands shaking so badly that most o the liquid ends up on the ground. 

When she puts the pitcher down, and sees she has left more traces of blood behind, a whine leaves her throat and hot tears turn her surroundings into a confused haze.

Clarke whirls away, pitcher crashing to the ground, her throat constricted as if an invisible hand is slowly squeezing the life out of her. 

“Clarke!”

Two giant paws hit her squarely in the chest and she tumbles backwards, landing onto her cot with a grunt. She has barely time to blink tears away and lift her head before Alistair jumps on her, effectively pinning her down.

The cot creaks under their combined weight and Clarke squirms, but he’s too heavy and won’t budge. Then he nuzzles into her cheek and a soft, steady purr starts deep within his chest.

The sound is that of thunder rolling in the distance, but soothing rather than threatening, the kind of noise that reminds a person how lucky they are to be warm and cozy beneath the safety of a sturdy roof as rain draws closer.

Alistair is warm, his fur soft, and the chill that has accompanied Clarke all night, to the point she’d begun to think her bones were carved from ice, gradually dissipates. Exhaustion creeps up on her and her eyes become heavy. 

She slides meekly towards sleep, tears drying on her cheeks, body greedily absorbing her daemon’s heat.

The last thing she’s aware of is Alistair’s dry, scratchy tongue licking her hands clean.

*********************************

She wakes to a bad taste in her mouth and a fluttering of wings overhead. 

Panic propels her out of the bed, fear that Heda somehow sneaked into camp having decided to take her life as well causing Clarke to grab for anything she can use to defend herself.

But the kestrel flying tight loops around the cell isn’t Yael, but Alistair experimenting around.

“Wanted to know how her form feels like.” He chirps at her unapologetically, before half-assing a landing at her feet. “Not very good, if you ask me.” He continues, ignoring her glare. 

Clarke sighs and Alistair hops back up, changing mid air to a form that makes Clarke yelp in surprise when a fully grown copperhead lands on her lap.

“ _Alistair_!” She growls in warning, recoiling a little. 

“Your mother’s here.” He hisses as explanation, forked tongue tasting the air before he twists around to face the tent’s entrance.

True enough a rustling right outside her quarters follows his announcement, and seconds later the tent’s flap is pulled back, revealing a square of paling sky and her mother’s worried face.

Leadership isn’t treating Abby kindly. Her face is beyond tired, fixed into a stoic expression that makes her look several years older than she is. Even her daemon seems subdued, small head tucked under a wing, so that he can peer at the world from underneath his light grey plumage while also catching a little shut-eye.  

Although to be fair, Clarke is not sure that daemons _need_ to sleep, strictly speaking - this fact like many other things about them is still unknown to her and the rest of her people. She ought to ask Alistair about it sometime. 

“Clarke…” Her mother starts - predictably - with asking how she feels. 

Or rather she would, but Clarke decides not to give her the chance. 

“I’m fine.” She quips curtly, Alistair slithering up her chest and around her arm as she climbs to her feet. 

“Let me at least…” Abby extends a hand, jerking it back hurriedly when the copperhead opens his jaws in warning. Alistair would never attack her mother, Clarke knows, but he is fiercely protective. It’s eerie how he can read her thoughts at times - the idea that he is an integral part of her still hard to digest - but right this minute she doesn’t want anyone to touch her, least of all her mother, and so Alistair makes sure her wish is met.

“I have no time for this mom.” She turns her back and grabs her satchel, spilling it on the rumpled cot to go over her equipment. The glimpse of sky she’d gotten had been a pale grey, and she will have just time to get ready and grab a bite before she joins the grounders’ column. “The Commander said a few of us can go see… go see…” Clarke grits her teeth and Alistair slides up her arm, wrapping himself around her neck and hissing softly. 

“This is madness Clarke.” Her mother steps closer, “this _peace_ …” 

“I did what I had to so we’d see another day.” Clarke snaps over her shoulder, “I intend to see it through.” 

She puts her things back in the satchel and lifts it up, casting a look around the tent to make sure she has everything she needs. When she is satisfied, Clarke steps towards the exit, intent on bypassing her mother. 

This time Abby’s hand grabs her elbow in an attempt to slow her down. 

“I don’t think you know what you’re doing, Clarke.” 

“Because you do so perfectly well, right _mother_? You knowing what you were doing worked out real well for dad.” Pain Clarke had thought healed flares up, all the friends she has watched die since coming to the ground turned to ghosts that haunt her, just as her father’s death does.

By contrast, she barely feels the sting of her mother’s slap. 

“I am getting my friends out of Mount Weather mom,” Clarke tries not to show surprise at the fact that her voice is cold and steady, sharp contrast to the anger she feels boiling inside. “Whether you like it or not.”  


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On the way to TonDC Clarke gets some unexpected kindness. But her own demons cannot be so easily ingnored when night comes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As usual thanks to everyone reading. Kudos and comments are much appreciated.
> 
> \- Dren

The sky lightens up to a pearly grey, enough for them to travel down the hill and to the grounders’ camp without difficulty, but the sun remains hidden behind the cloud cover and the air is damp with the promise of rain. 

The gloomy atmosphere suits Clarke’s mood just fine as she walks briskly down the steep slope, deliberately keeping herself apart from the rest of the small group that accepted the Commander’s invitation. 

Alistair is once again a lion - the aggressive form quickly becoming a favorite of his - and Clarke draws strength from his massive presence at her side. 

Her eyes travel down the hill until they come to rest on the grounders’ camp, most of which has already been dismantled. The pole to which Finn had been tied up remains planted into the ground as a warning, and she tears her gaze away from it, stomach lurching sickeningly.

She lets her eyes roam further away, towards the treeline. Morning fog wraps low around the pines giving the woods a foreboding appearance, as if to cross among them is to step into an entirely different realm in which mortals aren’t welcome. 

A bitter grimace twists Clarke’s lips, heart filling with regret at the thought that she cannot feel any of the wonder that ran through her veins when she exited the dropship for the first time. 

Earth itself robbed them all of innocence. 

And then finally her eyes lift up, Mount Weather’s silhouette barely visible among the low hanging clouds. The Mountain is little more than a shadow darker than the rest - a landmass more perceived than actually seen - but the knowledge it stands waiting for them sends a shiver down Clarke’s spine.

“Here.” A voice jerks her back to her surroundings so abruptly she almost stumbles to the ground. Bewildered she looks down, a hand pressing a ration pack against her chest, and her own rise automatically to close around the offered food, before she realizes who is offering it to her.

Murphy has crossed the span of ground separating her from the rest of the Sky People and fallen in step with her, but she’s been so absorbed by her own thoughts she hasn’t noticed. Clarke shoots an annoyed look Alistair’s way, but the lion shakes his thick mane and leaps a few paces ahead, nose hard to the ground. 

Murphy’s daemon - a reddish-brown barn owl - follows suit, effectively leaving the two of them alone. 

“Figured you could use a bite.” He says in greeting, the smirk he never seems to go without tugging at his lips. 

Clarke had gone into what passed as their mess hall after leaving her mother to do just that, but had given up the moment she’d set eyes on Raven sitting at one of the tables, her hunger forgotten. She hadn’t been ready to face more accusations, mostly because she felt they were deserved.

Her stomach growls loudly and she rips the rations’ pack open, bringing it halfway to her mouth before stopping to throw him a suspicious look. 

“Why so nice all of a sudden?” She asks, eyes narrowed. 

“Oh you know,” his grin widens, “just enjoying not being the most hated for once.” 

Clarke is tempted to throw the food into his face, but then her stomach rumbles again and she contents herself with glaring at him while she squeezes nutrient paste into her mouth. It’s a sign of how hard it is for her people to adapt to life on Earth that the mess hall still offers packaged rations instead of the fresh food they could grow or hunt in the woods around camp, although she can’t blame her mother for having ordered that only armed Guards venture into the woods for the time being. 

Hopefully an alliance with the grounders also means that foragers and hunters will be able to enter the forest without fearing for their lives, and Clarke knows Lincoln has been teaching Octavia and some others which plants are edible and which can be grown. 

The gruel filling her mouth is turned to bitter ashes by her worry - over the winter to come, that seems so far now, but will arrive eventually - and over the Mountain. She chews and frets until the two acts become inseparable, and only their arrival at the grounder camp keeps her from going insane. 

A good part of the Commander’s forces have already left, vanishing without a trace under the shadow cast by the trees, much the way that they appeared, and those that remain are mostly done packing up.

Heda awaits for them already mounted, her daemon just a dark speck against the grey slate of the sky as she circles overhead, evidently on the lookout for threats. 

When their eyes meet, Heda nods her way before raising a hand and prompting her horse into motion with a flick of the reins. 

Her remaining warriors instantly scramble onto the saddle and fall into orderly lines behind her and Gustus, Clarke and the contingent from Camp Jaha picking up the rear. 

She keeps her distance from everyone, her gaze inevitably drawn to the cart where Finn’s body has been laid for transport. She is taken aback by the fact he’s been wrapped up in a shroud - in what she interprets as a sign of respect. 

Unless the grounders just don’t care to see the face of the one that brought so much suffering on them. 

Surprisingly Murphy lingers at her side for some time, handing her an object wrapped in a piece of worn fabric once she’s done eating. Her hands close around the bundle and Clarke stares down uncomprehendingly for a moment before the angular lines of a guard-issued handgun truly register. As soon as her brain makes the connection, she tries to give the weapon back. 

“Keep it.” Murphy places a hand on her arm to stop her, shooting a meaningful glance towards the grounders marching up front, “we have an alliance now, but who knows about tomorrow? Besides, from what you told us, their Commander didn’t say we couldn’t carry weapons.” 

Clarke has been too intent on avoiding her own people to notice, but when she looks their way she sees that most of them are ostensibly carrying rifles. The grounders grumble whenever they look at a gun, but nobody has made an attempt to strip the Arkers of their weaponry. It helps perhaps that there are about three warriors for each one of them, and that her people carry the guns slung across their back, in a clear attempt to look as nonthreatening as possible while still being armed. 

She sighs and gives him a weary nod, before opening the satchel she slung across her chest and putting the gun inside. Seemingly content, Murphy quickens his step and leaves her be, his owl fluttering to perch atop his shoulder as he trots up to join Bellamy’s side. 

Alistair drops back and rubs his massive head against her leg before bounding off the dirt track they are following and disappearing among the trees. 

Clarke catches flashes of his fur - ghostly white today - as he dashes from bush to bush, and she shakes her head in amusement when a few birds take flight with a mad beating of wings after they cross his path. 

After a while he tires and rejoins her side, earning a disapproving grunt from a nearby warrior. Clarke gives the man an apologetic shrug, and his lips twitch on the edge of a smile before he catches himself, his expression returning unreadable. 

She thinks that overall she could even begin to enjoy their trek, if not for the tense atmosphere surrounding the group. Grounders and Sky People exchange wary glances that in a few cases turn to open sneers. and Clarke sighs wearily, feeling the beginning of a headache build up behind her eyes.

They may have an agreement, but real peace will be far harder to achieve.

“It will be fine.” Alistair purrs at her side, nudging her leg again to gain her attention. Clarke lets her hand fall to his head and scratches behind his ears absentmindedly, eyes roaming to the trees on the side of the narrow path as she tries to avoid another surge of worry.

A silhouette darker than the rest of the shadows catches her attention, and when it resolves into Finn she stumbles over nothing, her legs suddenly unable to bear her weight. 

He watches her pass silently, sad eyes never leaving hers, and when she blinks he’s gone although his haunting presence lingers inside her mind. 

She meets Alistair’s eyes, their deep blue full of concern, and she shakes her head offering a tremulous smile. She knows her daemon isn’t in the slightest fooled, but he says nothing, contenting himself with keeping as close to her as he can without drawing attention to her turmoil. 

She’s slowed out too much however, and Bellamy has noticed. He falls back and reaches out to pat her shoulder, well meaning if a bit awkward. 

“Are you holding up alright?” He asks, keeping his voice low enough that their conversation remains private. His daemon has taken the form of a squirrel for the time being, and zips back and forth in front of Alistair, until the lion paws at the ground with an annoyed huff. 

“Lykos!” Bellamy warns, but his daemon isn’t deterred, and puffs out her cheeks at him. Clarke snorts softly and for a moment the demons clawing at her heart can be forgotten. 

“As well as can be expected.” She replies finally, watching on as Bellamy’s daemon cavorts into a heap of dry leaves before finally quitting her shenanigans and racing up his leg and into his jacket’s pocket. 

They fall into an awkward silence and then he squeezes her arm again. 

“You did the right thing.” 

Clarke knows he means well, but she isn’t in the mood to receive his absolution. Nor anyone else’s for that matter. The feeling of Finn’s warm blood coating her hands is still too fresh, her grief too raw. And knowing that Bellamy is right and that leaving Finn to the grounders’ punishment would have been worse, doesn’t help any. 

“Now I have to live with it, don’t I?” He opens his mouth again at that, surely to try and unburden her, but Clarke shifts the focus of their conversation. 

“You still think this truce is a bad idea, don’t you?” Bellamy had been quite vocal about approaching the grounders to seek peace, starting back when they’d been dealing with Anya. He had been the one to propose they resist at the dropship before anyone else did, and Clarke knows that even though he seems to follow where she leads - their enmity forgotten - that doesn’t mean he agrees with all of her decisions.

“I think we’re wasting time.” He kicks at a small rock, sending it to tumble into nearby bushes, lips pursed in thought, “what you need is a man on the inside, because unless we manage to establish some sort of contact with the others in Mount Weather we’re going in blind. Lincoln can show me the way through the tunnels and…”

“No.” 

“Clarke…” 

She recognizes the way he sets his jaw, the painfully straight line his shoulders form as he settles himself to argue. 

“No.” She repeats, loud enough that a few heads turn their way, causing her to lower her voice again. “I can’t lose you too.” They may have started on opposite sides, but adversity had pushed them together, first allies for survival and then friends. She’s given too many people back to the embrace of the ground already, and she refuses to add Bellamy to the growing list. 

He watches her face closely for a time, but thankfully doesn’t press the matter further. He’ll try and convince her again, of that Clarke is sure, but for the time being he decides to walk by her side in silence.

They trudge along in the grounders’ wake, an almost eerie silence - broken only by the occasional creak of a saddle - wrapping around them like a blanket. 

A day that never truly dawned begins to darken towards sunfall, and when a handful of warriors detach from the main column, disappearing into the woods, Clarke realizes they are scouting for a place to camp.

She feels relieved. By now her legs are steadily burning, her feet throbbing dully with each step, and she is painfully aware that the rest of the Sky People aren’t faring much better. There were long shifts and hard work on the Ark too, but no amount of training could prepare them for life on the ground. Even the four guardsmen her mother decided to bring along look happy that the fading light will force them to stop soon. 

After a while the scouts come back, noisily crashing through the underbrush, the oldest of them reporting to Gustus. The massive warrior nods and the column veers off the dirt track they have been following, making its way to the spot where they will pass the night. 

It turns out to be a clearing wide enough to accommodate both parties with room to spare, and the groups split up neatly, leaving a wide strip of unoccupied ground between them, like some sort of invisible wall. 

Clarke looks from her people to the grounders, before walking briskly to the latter side of the clearing and setting her blanket roll and satchel down next to the warrior who almost smiled at her while they were travelling. The corner of the man’s eye quivers in surprise, but he simply shifts his own blankets a little in order to leave her and Alistair some room around the fire another grounder is starting. 

Bellamy crouches next to her, his blanket roll hugged to his chest as he shoots a dubious glance the warriors way. 

“It’s safer on our side,” he mutters in her ear.

“We need to trust them.” Clarke replies matter of factly, sitting herself down atop her blankets. Bellamy seems to think over her words, then gives a minute shrug and places his own bedroll next to hers. They share a pack of rations - a hard, tart block that passes for cheese and some more protein paste - and when one of the grounders looks at it curiously, Clarke offers some. 

The man sniffs the proteins suspiciously before taking a bite, mouth curling at the bitter taste. He tosses his head and says something to his neighbour, both of them shaking their heads in puzzlement, right before Clarke finds her hands full of _actual_ cheese and a hard bread enriched with nuts.

“Try this.” The warrior encourages, “much better.” His English is heavily accented as if he isn’t used to speaking it often. 

Clarke divides the food in even parts and gives Bellamy his share, before making a sandwich with the bread and cheese she has left over and biting into it. The flavor is so rich she finds herself short of breath, and judging from Bellamy’s surprised grunt, he feels very much the same. 

She practically devours the food, only slowing down when Alistair rumbles softly next to her, giving the last bites of the bread a yearning look. As far as Clarke understands daemons don’t really need to eat, but seemingly enjoy it, so she lets him have the remaining food, despite feeling like she could use another portion. 

He licks her fingers clean before curling up by the fire and, when she looks around, Clarke notices that most people have already stretched out on the hard ground to catch some sleep, night falling around them. 

She exchanges hushed goodnights with Bellamy and then lays on her bed roll, pulling the blanket that comes with it up to her chin. Alistair shifts closer and she presses into the lion’s side, his purred breathing and the sound of the sentinels walking around the camp at regular intervals lulling her into a daze.

She wakes up with a gasp, in what she guesses is the middle of the night. The fire is burning low now, its orange glow diminished, and the ground’s humidity has throughly chilled her to the bone despite the blanket. 

For a moment dreams and reality conflate, and Finn’s face stares down at her outlined in gold by the dying fire, but vanishes the moment she reaches out with a trembling hand. 

“You never get used to taking a life.” A voice says in her ear, making her jump. She twists around and pushes up on an elbow, only to find Lincoln kneeling by her bedside. 

“You were muttering and thrashing in your sleep.” He places a hand on her shoulder, guiding her back down, “I thought I’d check.” 

She wants to ask him why he is so kind after all her people have done to him, but can’t seem to find the right words. Instead she says. 

“What will help?” 

“Time.” 

Lincoln stands up, his shadow falling across the firelight and, as their eyes meet, Clarke anchors herself to his presence, her frantic breathing slowing down. When he seems content that she has settled back down, he nods one time then melts back into the night, probably to rejoin Octavia since he never strays too far from her. 

Clarke focuses her gaze towards the patches of night sky she can glimpse among the trees’ leaves. The fog has cleared out, and the stars shine down on her coldly, holding none of the answers she seeks. 

Sleep is a long time coming.

**Author's Note:**

> [follow me on TUMBLR for more stories and exclusive content](https://kendrene.tumblr.com/)


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